It’s Friday, January 23. Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Friday Front Page.
For as long as The Free Press has existed, Fridays have started only one way: with TGIF. And fear not, Free Pressers, that is not going to change. (If you missed Nellie’s latest, catch it here.) But here’s the thing: There’s a lot going on out there—a lot of news to make sense of. And so, starting today, we’re introducing a Friday edition of our daily email.
As you’ll see, The Friday Front Page is a little different from what we offer Monday through Thursday. First of all, it’ll land later in the morning. It will also include a roundup of some of the unmissable stories we’ve published that you may not have had time to read in the midweek maelstrom—and the latest edition of our advice column, Tough Love with Abigail Shrier.
But like any Front Page, this one will bring you plenty of up-to-the-minute news and sense-making that are the bread and butter of The Free Press.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the stories. We start with the tale of the woman who gave AI control of her life.
Would you hand over the keys to everything in your life—your bank account, your inbox, your health data, your calendar—to a robot?
That’s what start-up founder Molly Cantillon did, building something she acknowledges might seem a little creepy: a “personal panopticon,” an all-seeing AI that knows every detail of her life. She built it using Claude Code, a coding assistant that requires no technical know-how, and is available to everyone from Anthropic’s Claude AI. Before long it was paying her parking tickets, setting the time for her morning alarm, managing her stock portfolio, and more.
Molly trusts AI with some of the most important things in her life, and admits she couldn’t live without it. Does that make her a slave to this extraordinary new technology—or freer than the rest of us? And now that there’s nothing stopping you from building your own personal panopticon, would you? Should you? Read Molly’s piece and decide for yourself.
—Josh Code
Mr. Mayor, Let the Kids Have a Snow Day |
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America is braced for massive snowfall over the weekend, but when Monday rolls around, closed schools won’t necessarily mean a day of snowball fights with friends. In New York City, children might be forced to partake in the charade known as “remote learning.” Stop this nonsense, demands Will Rahn today. He delivers a passionate plea to Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “For the love of God, or whatever you’re allowed to call him in a New York school these days, can you just let the kids frolic in the snow on Monday?” | | |
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Tough Love: Can I Marry an Atheist? |
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Matthew is a 26-year-old Free Press reader who’s recently had a spiritual awakening—and he’s worried it’s going to mess up his relationship. His girlfriend doesn’t believe in God. In fact, she has an “adverse response” to His existence. Should Matthew marry her or leave her? Our advice columnist gives her two cents, in the latest edition of Tough Love with Abigail Shrier. | | |
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Trump’s Plan to Make Gaza Great Again |
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How far can positive thinking get you in the Holy Land? This week, while Donald Trump was busy assembling a rogues’ gallery of leaders to join his Board of Peace, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, shared his vision for Gaza-Lago, a resort city in a rebuilt war zone. No political or historical tract can help you make sense of these wildly optimistic moves, writes Eli Lake. Instead, to understand them, you’ll need Norman Vincent Peale’s self-help book "The Power of Positive Thinking," a Trump favorite. | | |
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Why Fentanyl Deaths Are Falling |
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Here’s something to feel positive about: There has been a sudden and dramatic fall in overdose deaths in America. The figures for the 12 months up to last August were just released, and they show a 21 percent drop from a year earlier. How did this happen? Sally Satel, who works on the front lines of the drug crisis at a methadone clinic in Washington, D.C., has some answers. | | |
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Will the Supreme Court Save the Fed from Trump? |
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When Donald Trump tried to fire Lisa Cook last summer, it was the first time in U.S. history that a president had sought to remove one of the governors of the Federal Reserve. The move—highly controversial at the time—has since gone to the courts, and this week the Supreme Court heard arguments. Jed Rubenfeld was listening in, and reports in his latest column on this crucial case testing the limits of presidential power. | | |
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